Sagewalk

[Anonymous]

I was just offered an instructor position at Sagewalk the Wilderness School in Bend, Oregon. The 5 day interview training gave me several days to observe groups and the program seemed solid to me. My sister spent 5 weeks in the Straight program in the mid-eighties and she is horrified that I would consider working in this field. What can people tell me about this program that I may not have picked up on?

[Helena Handbasket]

On 2004-11-16 21:29:00, Anonymous wrote:

"I was just offered an instructor position at Sagewalk the Wilderness School in Bend, Oregon. The 5 day interview training gave me several days to observe groups and the program seemed solid to me. My sister spent 5 weeks in the Straight program in the mid-eighties and she is horrified that I would consider working in this field. What can people tell me about this program that I may not have picked up on?"

Stick around these forums and  http://www.thestraights.com  for Straight info.  You might want to poke around and see if anyone's been to Sagewalk, who they're affiliated with and if they're on anyone's "watch list", like http://www.isaccorp.org.[ This Message was edited by: Sara-1984 on 2004-11-17 03:57 ]

[Antigen]

Dear Anon,
  Kudos to you for doing a little independent research!

  First, we don't have much info on SageWalk so it would be mutually beneficial if you were to provide us w/ some details so we can comment on those.

  Here's some mention of SageWalk from these forums. http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... art=0#5214

  Is Mark Wardle still involved? If so, that's probably not a very good sign. He has a long history w/ CEDU, which is one of the early Synanon based youth lock-downs.
 
  How much contact did you have w/ Straight in relation to your sister's program? That may be a good place for us to look for a frame of reference so I'll post a note over on the Straight forum and see if that gets us anywhere.

  As for what you may have missed while touring the place, it's all pretty much internal. It's hard for anyone who hasn't experienced it firsthand to really understand, but I'll try and explain. The methods employed rampantly in the 'troubled teen' industry are fundamentally harmful in many ways. They're based on the methods developed by Chuck Dederich at Synanon (later, Synanon Church, since shut down after Chuck and a codefendent were convicted of attempted murder. The victim was a lawyer, Paul Morantz, who represented a young woman in a suit against the organization)

  Essentially, the process consists of breaking the kid's will, making them hopeless and vulnerable through various methods of control and intimidation and then offering salvation by way of compliance and complicity. Is that what's going on there? Believe it or not, it's the complicity that comes back in the form of nightmares and difficulty w/ social interactions and such.

  I look forward to discussing this issue w/ you.

Time's fun when you're having flies.
--Kermit the Frog

[groovy1634]

um...listen to what your sister has to say then assume it is 10x worse....i was in straight for a short time in 91....i go to hairstyling school right now, and there is a girl who just came back from one of the wilderness programs....someone told me about the girl and her experiences, and i had to meet her for myself, of course....she doesn't seem too scarred yet, but i'm not too sure she knew the severity of those programs, and she said that she didn't know it was wrong.....poor girl....she's only 20 years old...she has such a sweet soul, and i hope it stays that way....poor girl can bearly stick up for herself....

lisa